Eileen Rose - Shine Like It Does

Rough Trade Records - 42 mins - 2000

Openly autobiographical, hopelessly romantic and sometimes darkly twisted, Eileen Rose has many stories to tell, and in the main they're not happy ones. An Irish/Italian/American now living in England, Rose documents the heartbreaking business of growing up 'broke and tired, gray and bare/Doesn't it make you want to be removed?' (Find Your Way Out). With a reference to Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline she evokes lost innocence in Lincoln Park, the lament of a woman who expected more from her future but has become disillusioned 'We all had plans in a world that rises up to meet them/And we'd never look back/We laughed more then.'

Seemingly haunted by a darkness, Rose sings of broken relationships, an 'old world family ghost' and namechecks herself in Still in the Family, a moving - and chilling - tale of domestic abuse. She also uses her own name on the opening track where her father pleads with her to 'never sing the blues' - fortunately for us, she disregarded his advice.

Caroline Hennessy

Tracklisting: Rose - Still In The Family - Walk The Jetty - Silver Ladle - Lincoln Park - Would You Marry Me - Lie To Me - Shining - Trying To Lose You - Find Your Way Out